Romania

Romania is a country located in the Balkans region of southeastern Europe, with Bucharest (Bucuresti) serving as the country's capital. The country is located along the Danube River and the Carpathians, and Romania gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877 after a war of independence and the Russian Empire's intervention in the Balkans to assist their fellow Orthodox Christians against the Muslim Turks. Romania became a kingdom ruled by the German House of Hohenzollern, and it was closely connected to the German Empire. However, Romania allied with the Entente Powers during World War I, leading to the country gaining Transylvania, Bukovina, and Bessarabia, and these territories would be lost due to Romania's membership of the Axis Powers during World War II. In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed the latter two regions, and Romania defected to the Comintern alliance in 1944 after the Soviets invaded Romania in Operation Bagration. After the war's end, Romania became a communist government, and it remained so until the 1989 revolution and the downfall of Nicolae Ceausescu's regime. Romania transitioned back to a capitalist market economy after the Cold War's end, and it grew to have a population of 19,511,000 people in 2015.